I recently came across the Danish idea of Janteloven, or the Law of Jante, again. I had heard of it before, but this time I started thinking about it in a completely different context: cities. Janteloven is a complicated cultural idea, and reducing Scandinavian culture to a paragraph would be ridiculous,…
There is a difference between a place where people spend money and a place where people spend time. For years, economic development has understandably focused on getting people through the door. Cities measure visitors, event attendance, hotel stays, restaurant sales, retail occupancy and any number of other indicators that tell…
There are public spaces that look beautiful in architectural renderings and somehow feel completely dead after they’re built. Everything is technically there. Nice pavement. Landscaping. Benches. Maybe some public art. Someone probably gave a speech at the ribbon cutting about creating a vibrant gathering place for the community. Then you…
This is going to start in a strange place, but stick with me. I was thinking about how men behave in public bathrooms. Walk up to a urinal and there’s essentially no privacy. Another guy can be standing a few feet away and nobody thinks twice about it. But walk…
A neglected building rarely harms only the person who owns it. The damage spreads. The neighboring homeowner watches the value of a well-maintained property suffer. A nearby business loses foot traffic. People begin avoiding the block. Visitors see the building through the windshield and quietly revise their opinion of the…
I can usually tell pretty quickly when a service business is wasting money on social media, and it almost always starts the same way. They’ll tell me they’ve been “posting consistently” for months, sometimes years, and then they’ll show me their page like it’s proof that something is working. What…
There’s a dangerous illusion that homeowners, business owners, and even entire cities fall into. It starts with pride. “We just renovated.” Except “just” was 15 years ago. And in today’s world, 15 years might as well be a different era. The Emotional Trap Walk into almost any home that was…
Most municipal systems treat payment confirmations like cold accounting records. “Payment received. Here’s your receipt.” End of story. But residents are not accounts. They are stakeholders. They are the people who fund, shape, and ultimately judge the performance of a city. And every time they make a payment, they are…
I was in a room full of residents recently, talking about local business development. The question seemed simple: What kind of businesses do you think your town could support? The answers were cautious. Safe. Almost defensive. People mentioned modest ideas. Nothing too ambitious. Nothing too “high-end.” The underlying tone was…
Spend five minutes in a local Facebook group and you will encounter a familiar chorus: “The roads are awful.” “The city needs to repave everything.” “Why do these potholes never get fixed?” People will passionately debate asphalt quality, paving schedules, and municipal budgets. Yet some of these same residents live…
At GRIP.D, we design environments that affect how people experience places, brands, and communities. Our focus is on strategy, behavioral science, and growth. We consistently study how context influences decision-making. One of the most telling environments for this is not a city center or a digital platform. It is a cruise…
Local elections for city council, school board, mayor, and state legislature have always operated on tight budgets and grassroots efforts. Candidates rely on yard signs, community forums, local newspapers, and door-to-door outreach. These methods endure, but a quiet revolution is transforming how voters, especially younger ones, learn about down-ballot races.…
A Behavioral Science Case Study on Political Blind Spots and Community Backlash Across many cities, the same pattern repeats. A resident raises concerns about growth or development. Elected officials and their consultants confidently wave it away. They assume the critic is uninformed or unimportant. They assume the broader public will…
How Neuroscience Is Quietly Rewriting Urban Planning and Place Branding Most people believe they choose a city or neighborhood based on rational factors. Jobs. Schools. Taxes. Commute times. We repeat these explanations because they sound responsible. They present us as measured decision makers. But neuroscience tells a different story. Your…
The schools in Boca Raton and West Boca Raton are likely to see few changes this year with budgets still a major concern. However Verde Elementary School is currently an interesting site, with a long orange paint line marking the location of what is to be a new security fence.…
Few would question the importance of the Internet in today's political campaign climate. Although traditional marketing methods are still very relevant, online campaigning has become more and more important as our world turns digital. Campaigns on the national, regional, and even local scale require the expertise of an online political…
Imagine that a fight between two adolescent kids is taking place. It's after school and they're near the schoolyard and the shouts and taunts attract your attention. A crowd of their peers has formed, egging the kids on as they fight. Do you step in and stop them or stand…
Whatever happened to creativity and individual expression? It seems that Solomon may have been on to something when he said "There is nothing new under the sun." Everywhere I turn it seems everyone is just trying to copy something that worked well for someone else. We see this a lot…
One of the hottest subjects right now is crowd funding. If you don't know what this is, it's simply going to the public (via the Internet) to ask for funding for your project. If you want to make a video game, build a new app, write a book, or invent…
I was recently visiting a blog I found a link to through a friend on Facebook. The blog's page had the usual side bars with links to various other things on the blog as well as some sponsors and so forth. The "content" itself, however, consisted of a title in…
About the book The use of social media and political purposes isn’t entirely new. Many argue that Thomas Paine’s political tract, Common Sense, was an early example of social media in action, galvanizing people in town halls and taverns. Today, blogs, Facebook, Twitter, and other social media platforms are being…
http://buzz103.radio.com/2011/02/16/the-morning-buzz-whats-on-the-web-wednesday-with-craig-and-herb/#comment-6201
Every campaign needs Online Campaign Help. The way a candidate projects him or herself are everything in today's electoral politics. Managing your online reputation and getting noticed is key to gaining the support and votes needed for a win.
The first book dealing with Location Based Applications and how to use these types of apps including Foursquare & Gowalla for business and fun.
The global traffic exchange.
The current JICKA.COM website is a BETA site and they are developing and will launch the new JICKA website in the coming months. Although the website's look and feel won't change very much, with the launch of the new JICKA website, they intend to add and test new features prior…
The Pizza Experts work with the owners of independent pizza restaurants, and show them how they can implement “outside the pizza box” marketing techniques, that their competition haven’t even thought about trying yet.
The first site on the web dedicated to bringing pizza lovers from around the world together, to meet and share pizza.
Worstpizza is dedicated to finding the best pizza places, by sorting through the worst.
About The Book Has anyone ever posted something nasty about you on the Internet? Finding work, romance and friends can become a disaster if you are smeared online. With Do It Yourself Online Reputation Management anybody can learn to build up or repair an online reputation using our simple, step-by-step…
Send friends and family real slices of pizza anywhere in the world.
September 10th, 2026
The Most Dangerous Thing a City Can Lose Isn’t Money. It’s Ambition.
September 4th, 2026
Cities Spend Too Much Time Counting Visitors and Not Enough Time Counting Time
August 17th, 2026
The First Ten People Problem
August 10th, 2026
When a Neighborhood Stops Noticing What’s Wrong, You Have a Bigger Problem
August 3rd, 2026
What American Cities Can Learn From Ireland’s New Approach to Derelict Property
